<p>I’m going to major in business and minor in computer science and I really want to get a good laptop for my budget being around $1300. I also want to be able to enjoy streaming movies and fast speed. If anyone could just recommend any laptops that fit? thank you!</p>
<p>Basically ANY modern laptop will meet your requirements of video streaming and being reasonably speedy. (Ignore it when the companies tell you that you need their top of the line laptop to watch streaming video.) And you can do it for a lot less than $1300. You will get more bang for your buck if you go for a PC over a Mac, but either would meet your requirements. You could get a consumer-grade laptop for $500 that would meet all your needs, or you could opt for a more durable laptop like Lenovo Thinkpads (like the T series) that are more durable/higher quality components and will generally last longer and put up with your abuse. You have a lot of options, and you can get a lot of computer for your money.
If you have any specific questions, I can help out with that.</p>
<p>Thanks I was thinking of going for a mac and installing windows on it. Do you think this would be fine for computer science? And what gb and screen size would you recommend? Because I tend to download a lot of things too</p>
<p>What in particular would you need Windows for? In CS, most people use Unix-based systems, which means Linux or Macs. Windows is less common, especially on the academic side of things. I don’t think you would need Windows for any CS coursework. If you want to play games, you might need Windows depending on the game, but more and more games now run on Macs as well. If you want to get a Mac, go for it, but unless you have some specific need for Windows at this point, I would hold off on purchasing a license for dual booting. It’s expensive, and you may be able to get a free copy through your university’s CS program.</p>
<p>For screen size, there’s a lot of personal preference. Most people get 13" MacBooks, mostly because of price. I don’t think you need a 15". I currently have a 14" computer and am happy with it. I would recommend going to a store where you can try them out and see what feels like a good size. Keep in mind, you could also invest ~$100 for a nice external monitor if you want to keep things portable but have more workspace when you want it.</p>
<p>I assume your other question is about hard drive size? Personally, I would go for a hard drive over solid state with the cost difference, especially if you think you’ll use a lot of space. In most cases, 500 GB is plenty, but you can also get an external hard drive if you want to store a bunch of extra HD movies and stuff like that that you don’t need to have with you all the time. (External hard drive is also very important for back up. Make sure you back up your computer!)</p>
<p>As a business major with a Mac, I would suggest it. It’s easy to install windows and I have had no issues.</p>
<p>I don’t know anything about Windows laptops, so this is my opinion on Apple:</p>
<p>With your budget, the cheapest Retina MacBook Pro is the only good Macbook Pro (the non-Retina one just a scam) you can buy, and you’d have to buy it at a site like B&H to avoid the tax. You could get a MacBook Air, which just got a price drop. The 13 inch model is $1000, and a 1TB external drive for your stuff should be $100 more (I got a 2TB one or $130 on Amazon as well). You should wait a bit though, Apple is doing their conference in a week or so and they might announce new laptops.</p>
<p>How is a non-retina MacBook a scam? Non-retina screens are the pixel density you find in most computers (though I <em>am</em> of the opinion that it’s ridiculous that phones now have higher resolution than laptops and larger screens need to catch up). You also pay a premium for the high DPI screens and they reduce battery life. It’s a preference call, and I wouldn’t go so far as to call non-retina a scam.</p>
<p>You’re paying too much for a laptop with 2012 specs that apple is going to stop producing this year. It’s outdated. The screen is bad but it doesn’t have good battery like the Air. The retina manages to have 9-10 hours of battery with a great display. The Air gets 13. The hard drive is slow. There’s no reason for it to exists aside from the built in disc drive, which less and less people need everyday. </p>
<p>Yeah maybe it’s not a scam, sorry. It’s just a bad purchase. </p>
<p>I tend to be excessively cost-conscious, and high DPI screens are still pricey at this point. They need to become more ubiquitous to bring down the costs (or does the reverse happen?).</p>
<p>Also, for the hard drive issue, I’m still a fan of hard drives for some things over solid state that’s becoming more popular. Again, because of the cost. I still use a lot of hard drive space, and I’m not about to drop a couple hundred bucks for a 512 GB SSD. The biggest benefit of SSD comes in booting, so it makes sense to have a small secondary SSD to install the OS on in addition to a large hard drive. SSD also have the benefit of no moving parts to break, but they have limited read/write cycles, making them less ideal for continuously accessed data. With a SSD, it is more important to keep back-ups as well. Eventually HDD will go the way of the dodo bird, but again, we’re not there yet, and solid state needs to make some improvements before it can really take over.</p>
<p>But that’s the thing, it’s $1,200. It’s not like it’s $800 and for cost-conscious consumers on a budget. Just $100 more gets you the latest model. I mean unless you really want to save $100, I don’t see why it’s even on sale.</p>
<p>Although I agree on SSDs (I have externals and eventually going to set up a NAS), I think we are in an age where a large majority of people keep their stuff on the cloud and use Spotify and Netflix. If you need a large hard drive that is fine, but you are increasingly on the minority hence the move to SSDs and the move away from large capacity music players.</p>
<p>I first misread that as “set up the NSA” instead of “set up a NAS.” Oops.
And yeah, large hard drives are becoming less relevant unless you have lots of games, do video work, or (in my case) have a crap ton of scientific research data. I currently have EEG results taking up almost half my home partition…</p>